1387: Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” characters begin their pilgrimage to Canterbury (according to scholars) 1492: Christopher Columbus signs a contract with the Spanish monarchs to find the “Indies” with the stated goal of converting people to Catholicism. This promises him 10% of all riches found, and the governorship of any lands encountered. 1895: Treaty of Shimonoseki is signed ending […]
1457 BC: Battle of Megiddo: Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeat a large Canaanite coalition under King of Kadesh. First battle recorded with a reliable account. 1705: Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge 1746: Jacobite Rising 1745: Battle of Culloden, the last battle on British soil: Royalist troops under the Duke of Cumberland defeat the Jacobite […]
1755: Samuel Johnson’s “A Dictionary of the English Language” published in London 1877: Boston-Somerville installs the world’s 1st telephone in Massachusetts 1912: RMS Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland as the band plays on, with the loss of between 1,490 and 1,635 people Source: Onthisday.com
1865 US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington; he dies a day later 1903 Dr Harry Plotz discovers a vaccine against typhoid (NYC) 1912 RMS Titanic hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland 1935 Black Sunday: Severe dust storm ravages the US Midwest, led to the region being named “the Dust Bowl” 1981 1st Space Shuttle, Columbia […]
1250 The Seventh Crusade is defeated in Egypt, Louis IX of France captured 1598 Edict of Nantes grants political rights to French Huguenots 1860 1st Pony Express reaches Sacramento, California 1868 Abyssinian War ends as British and Indian troops capture Magdala and Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II commits suicide 1960 France becomes the 4th nuclear nation by exploding an atomic bomb in the Sahara […]
1204: 4th Crusade occupies and plunders Constantinople 1811: 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington 1872: Jesse James gang robs bank in Columbia, Kentucky (1 dead/$1,500) 1927: Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek begins counter revolution in Shanghai 1961: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit Earth (Vostok 1) Source: Onthisday.com
1512: Battle of Ravenna: French forces under Gaston de Foix defeat the Holy League in a major battle of the Italian Wars 1783: Hostilities formally cease in the American Revolutionary War 1814: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates unconditionally and he is exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean 1868: The Shogunate is abolished in Japan 1955: Chartered Air India plane the […]
1407: Lama Deshin Shekpa visits the Ming Dynasty capital at Nanjing and is awarded the title Great Treasure Prince of Dharma 1516: 1st Jewish ghetto established: Venice compels Jews to live in a specific area 1815: Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies experiences a cataclysmic eruption, one of the most powerful in history, killing around 71,000 people, causes global […]
1483: Edward V (aged 12) succeeds his father Edward IV as king of England. He is never crowned, and disappears presumed murdered, after incarceration in the Tower of London with his younger brother Richard (the “Princes in the Tower”) 1731: British mariner Robert Jenkins’ ear cut off by Spanish Guarde Costa in the Caribbean, later catalyst for war between […]
1767: Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders 1886: William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons. 1898: Battle of Atbara River, Anglo-Egyptian forces crush 6,000 Sudanese 1913: Opening of China’s 1st parliament takes place in Peking (now Beijing) 2004: Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two […]
